Develop Reference

Replace a substring between two substrings

How can I replace a substring between page1/ and _type-A with 222.6 in the below-provided l string?
l = 'https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
replace_with = '222.6'
Expected result:
https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6_type-A/go
I tried:
import re
re.sub('page1/.*?_type-A','',l, flags=re.DOTALL)
But it also removes page1/ and _type-A.

You may use re.sub like this:
import re
l = 'https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
replace_with = '222.6'
print (re.sub(r'(?<=page1/).*?(?=_type-A)', replace_with, l))
Output:
https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6_type-A/go
RegEx Demo
RegEx Breakup:
(?<=page1/): Lookbehind to assert that we have page1/ at previous position
.*?: Match 0 or more of any string (lazy)
(?=_type-A): Lookahead to assert that we have _type-A at next position

You can use
import re
l = 'https://'+'homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
replace_with = '222.6'
print (re.sub('(page1/).*?(_type-A)',fr'\g<1>{replace_with}\2',l, flags=re.DOTALL))
Output: https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6_type-A/go
See the Python demo online
Note you used an empty string as the replacement argument. In the above snippet, the parts before and after .*? are captured and \g<1> refers to the first group value, and \2 refers to the second group value from the replacement pattern. The unambiguous backreference form (\g<X>) is used to avoid backreference issues since there is a digit right after the backreference.
Since the replacement pattern contains no backslashes, there is no need preprocessing (escaping) anything in it.

This works:
import re
l = 'https://homepage.com/home/page1/222.6 a_type-A/go'
pattern = r"(?<=page1/).*?(?=_type)"
replace_with = '222.6'
s = re.sub(pattern, replace_with, l)
print(s)
The pattern uses the positive lookahead and lookback assertions, ?<= and ?=. A match only occurs if a string is preceded and followed by the assertions in the pattern, but does not consume them. Meaning that re.sub looks for a string with page1/ in front and _type behind it, but only replaces the part in between.

regex: combine capturing group with OR condition

Let's say I have a string :
s = "id_john, num847, id_000, num___"
I know how to retrieve either of 2 patterns with |:
re.findall("id_[a-z]+|num[0-9]+", s)
#### ['id_john', 'num847'] # OK
I know how to capture a portion only of a match with parenthesis:
re.findall("id_([a-z]+)", s)
#### ['john']
But I fail when i try to combine those two features, this is my desired output:
#### ['john', '847']
Thanks for your help.. (I work with python)

No need for lookaheads or complex patterns.
Consider this:
>>> re.findall('id_([a-z]+)|num([0-9]+)', s)
[('john', ''), ('', '847')]
When the first pattern matches, the first group will contain the match, and the second group will be empty. When the second pattern matches, the first group is empty, and the second group contains the match.
Since one of the two groups will always be empty, joining them couldn't hurt.
>>> [a+b for a,b in re.findall('id_([a-z]+)|num([0-9]+)', s)]
['john', '847']

You may use this code in Python with lookaheads:
>>> s = "id_john, num847, id_000, num___"
>>> print re.findall(r'(?:id_(?=[a-z]+\b)|num(?=\d+\b))([a-z\d]+)', s)
['john', '847']
RegEx Details:
(?:: Start non-capture group
id_(?=[a-z]+\b): Match id_ with a lookahead assertion to make sure we have [a-z]+ characters ahead followed by word boundary
|: OR
num(?=\d+\b))([a-z\d]+: Matchnum` with a lookahead assertion to make sure we have digits ahead followed by word boundary
): End non-capture group
([a-z\d]+): Match 1+ characters with lowercase letters or digits

Match first parenthesis with Python

From a string such as
70849 mozilla/5.0(linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn)applewebkit/534.30(khtml,likegecko)version/4.0mobilesafari/534.30
I want to get the first parenthesized content linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn.
My code looks like this:
s=r'70849 mozilla/5.0(linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn)applewebkit/534.30(khtml,likegecko)version/4.0mobilesafari/534.30'
re.search("(\d+)\s.+\((\S+)\)", s).group(2)
but the result is the last brackets' contents khtml,likegecko.
How to solve this?

The main issue you have is the greedy dot matching .+ pattern. It grabs the whole string you have, and then backtracks, yielding one character from the right at a time, trying to accommodate for the subsequent patterns. Thus, it matches the last parentheses.
You can use
^(\d+)\s[^(]+\(([^()]+)\)
See the regex demo. Here, the [^(]+ restricts the matching to the characters other than ( (so, it cannot grab the whole line up to the end) and get to the first pair of parentheses.
Pattern expalantion:
^ - string start (NOTE: If the number appears not at the start of the string, remove this ^ anchor)
(\d+) - Group 1: 1 or more digits
\s - a whitespace (if it is not a required character, it can be removed since the subsequent negated character class will match the space)
[^(]+ - 1+ characters other than (
\( - a literal (
([^()]+) - Group 2 matching 1+ characters other than ( and )
\)- closing ).
Debuggex Demo
Here is the IDEONE demo:
import re
p = re.compile(r'^(\d+)\s[^(]+\(([^()]+)\)')
test_str = "70849 mozilla/5.0(linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn)applewebkit/534.30(khtml,likegecko)version/4.0mobilesafari/534.30"
print(p.findall(test_str))
# or using re.search if the number is not at the beginning of the string
m = re.search(r'(\d+)\s[^(]+\(([^()]+)\)', test_str)
if m:
print("Number: {0}\nString: {1}".format(m.group(1), m.group(2)))
# [('70849', 'linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn')]
# Number: 70849
# String: linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn

You can use a negated class \(([^)]*)\) to match anything between ( and ):
>>> s=r'70849 mozilla/5.0(linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn)applewebkit/534.30(khtml,likegecko)version/4.0mobilesafari/534.30'
>>> m = re.search(r"(\d+)[^(]*\(([^)]*)\)", s)
>>> print m.group(1)
70849
>>> print m.group(2)
linux;u;android4.2.1;zh-cn

Stripping variable borders with python re

How does one replace a pattern when the substitution itself is a variable?
I have the following string:
s = '''[[merit|merited]] and [[eat|eaten]] and [[go]]'''
I would like to retain only the right-most word in the brackets ('merited', 'eaten', 'go'), stripping away what surrounds these words, thus producing:
merited and eaten and go
I have the regex:
p = '''\[\[[a-zA-Z]*\[|]*([a-zA-Z]*)\]\]'''
...which produces:
>>> re.findall(p, s)
['merited', 'eaten', 'go']
However, as this varies, I don't see a way to use re.sub() or s.replace().

s = '''[[merit|merited]] and [[eat|eaten]] and [[go]]'''
p = '''\[\[[a-zA-Z]*?[|]*([a-zA-Z]*)\]\]'''
re.sub(p, r'\1', s)
? so that for [[go]] first [a-zA-Z]* will match empty (shortest) string and second will get actual go string
\1 substitutes first (in this case the only) match group in a pattern for each non-overlapping match in the string s. r'\1' is used so that \1 is not interpreted as the character with code 0x1

well first you need to fix your regex to capture the whole group:
>>> s = '[[merit|merited]] and [[eat|eaten]] and [[go]]'
>>> p = '(\[\[(?:[a-zA-Z]*\|)*([a-zA-Z]*)\]\])'
>>> [('[[merit|merited]]', 'merited'), ('[[eat|eaten]]', 'eaten'), ('[[go]]', 'go')]
[('[[merit|merited]]', 'merited'), ('[[eat|eaten]]', 'eaten'), ('[[go]]', 'go')]
This matches the whole [[whateverisinhere]] and separates the whole match as group 1 and just the final word as group 2. You can than use \2 token to replace the whole match with just group 2:
>>> re.sub(p,r'\2',s)
'merited and eaten and go'
or change your pattern to:
p = '\[\[(?:[a-zA-Z]*\|)*([a-zA-Z]*)\]\]'
which gets rid of grouping the entire match as group 1 and only groups what you want. you can then do:
>>> re.sub(p,r'\1',s)
to have the same effect.
POST EDIT:
I forgot to mention that I actually changed your regex so here is the explanation:
\[\[(?:[a-zA-Z]*\|)*([a-zA-Z]*)\]\]
\[\[ \]\] #literal matches of brackets
(?: )* #non-capturing group that can match 0 or more of whats inside
[a-zA-Z]*\| #matches any word that is followed by a '|' character
( ... ) #captures into group one the final word
I feel like this is stronger than what you originally had because it will also change if there are more than 2 options:
>>> s = '[[merit|merited]] and [[ate|eat|eaten]] and [[go]]'
>>> p = '\[\[(?:[a-zA-Z]*\|)*([a-zA-Z]*)\]\]'
>>> re.sub(p,r'\1',s)
'merited and eaten and go'

Regular Expressions using Substitution to convert numbers

I'm a Python beginner, so keep in mind my regex skills are level -122.
I need to convert a string with text containing file1 to file01, but not convert file10 to file010.
My program is wrong, but this is the closest I can get, I've tried dozens of combinations but I can't get close:
import re
txt = 'file8, file9, file10'
pat = r"[0-9]"
regexp = re.compile(pat)
print(regexp.sub(r"0\d", txt))
Can someone tell me what's wrong with my pattern and substitution and give me some suggestions?

You could capture the number and check the length before adding 0, but you might be able to use this instead:
import re
txt = 'file8, file9, file10'
pat = r"(?<!\d)(\d)(?=,|$)"
regexp = re.compile(pat)
print(regexp.sub(r"0\1", txt))
regex101 demo
(?<! ... ) is called a negative lookbehind. This prevents (negative) a match if the pattern after it has the pattern in the negative lookbehind matches. For example, (?<!a)b will match all b in a string, except if it has an a before it, meaning bb, cb matches, but ab doesn't match. (?<!\d)(\d) thus matches a digit, unless it has another digit before it.
(\d) is a single digit, enclosed in a capture group, denoted by simple parentheses. The captured group gets stored in the first capture group.
(?= ... ) is a positive lookahead. This matches only if the pattern inside the positive lookahead matches after the pattern before this positive lookahead. In other words, a(?=b) will match all a in a string only if there's a b after it. ab matches, but ac or aa don't.
(?=,|$) is a positive lookahead containing ,|$ meaning either a comma, or the end of the string.
(?<!\d)(\d)(?=,|$) thus matches any digit, as long as there's no digit before it and there's a comma after it, or if that digit is at the end of the string.

how about?
a='file1'
a='file' + "%02d" % int(a.split('file')[1])

This approach uses a regex to find every sequence of digits and str.zfill to pad with zeros:
>>> txt = 'file8, file9, file10'
>>> re.sub(r'\d+', lambda m : m.group().zfill(2), txt)
'file08, file09, file10'